Why do people keep giving Kamenashi Kazuya (aka Kame, member of idol group KAT-TUN) leading roles in dramas? Maybe they’ll stop now, because his latest work, Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge has gone from roughly 12% ratings for its first episode down to 7.6% for its third.

YamaNade (as Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge is shortened to) has all the makings of a dorama that should be able to hold its own against the competition. The drama is based on of a shojo manga where a plain, skull-and-gore loving girl gets to live in a mansion with four handsome Flower Boys as they attempt to turn her into an ideal Japanese lady. I won’t place all the blame on Kamenashi, because the writers tasked with adapting the source material into a live action have probably alienated fans by removing most of the quirky/craziness that likely made people fans in the first place. I’ve only seen the anime, but if its anything like the manga, then YamaNade live action is way too mellow compared to the crack that is the source.

But Kamenashi has proven time and again that he doesn’t have the acting chops to carry a drama on his sholders, and he doesn’t have enough onscreen charisma to make up for his inability to act.

Kamenashi in the flop “Kami no Shizuku”

Kame began to earn the name of “ratings killer” when his 2008 drama 1 Pound no Fukuin was rumored to be cut from 11 episodes to 9.  Next he took on the doomed “Kami no Shizuku.” I say this was doomed because the show was about wine, and jam packed with wine terminology. In other words, it was boring. Therefore, it was really no surprise that it averaged 6% at the end.

Things got even worse for Kamenashi when he guest starred in an episode of the smash hit MR. BRAIN featuring Japan’s drama king Kimura Takuya. While the episode before Kame’s came in at 22%, his appearance on the show only earned 16%. (And the show returned to the 20% range once he was gone.)

I’m not saying that all of the blame for the aforementioned failures can and should be placed on his shoulders. Again, Kami no Shizuku was utterly unwatchable. But I (and surely other people too) can sit through a drama that may have a questionable plot, or weak acting at points, if the lead actors catch my attention.

Unfortunately for Kamenashi, he’s just not a very good actor, nor does he shine on the screen. He’s brought that same exact blank-faced look and aloof demeanor to just about every character that he’s done. Luckily for him, he’s been cast over and over again to play the cool and aloof young man. But even if you’re forced to play the same type of person repeatedly, shouldn’t an actor tailor their performance to the individual circumstances of each character? Some people, particularly his fans, may see this as “wow, he really knows how to act.” I see it as “he only knows how to play one person,” which just happens to be the same image that he uses in KAT-TUN. I’ve seen all of his work since about 2006, and by now his act is stale and old. It’s the same thing all the time.

Tegoshi Yuya in “YamaNade”

On the other hand, take one of his co-stars in Yamande, Tegoshi Yuya (from idol group News).  I’m not going to pretend that he’s a good actor either, but he seems to actually try to become the character that he is supposed to be playing, and is therefore more palatable to watch than Kame. In the lowly rated episode 3, he really stood out from the rest, particularly in the scene where he tries to stop Sunako from going out again to look for Hiroshi. The boy has limited acting skills, bless his heart, but at least you can tell that he tries.

I’ve also seen all of  Tegoshi Yuya’s work since 2006, and can say that while he sometimes plays similar characters, he’s able to recognize the differences in them in order to make each character feel distinct.  For example, his character in Shabake (Ichitaro) is similar to the one in YamaNade (Yukinojo)–kind, cute and caring. But as Ichitaro, he was very calm and serene, reflecting the fact that Ichitaro was frail and sickly. His performance as Yukinojo is appropriately more boisterous and over the top.  I feel like Kame is missing this ability to make each performance distinctive.

Yamashita Tomohisa in FujiTV’s “Code Blue”

I feel like I need to say this again, but the ratings failure is not all his fault. After all, Yamashita “dead-fish eyes” Tomohisa (from idol group News) has comparably limited acting range and no on-screen personality, but Fuji TV has fallen in love with him, so he manages to wiggle his way into their prime time shows that feature better story lines, more originality and more creativity than the scripts that Kamenashi gets.  (I’m not bashing him by saying he has dead-fish eyes–even his fans call him that.) In the end, though, when you can’t rely on the story, your co-stars or the writing to bring viewers, it should be your job as lead actor to bring more to the screen. Unfortunately, Kame just doesn’t do it.

I don’t know where he will go from here. I’m sure Johnny’s Entertainment will continue to buy Kamenashi’s way into dramas in some capacity, but it will be interesting to see how much longer he’ll be cast as a lead actor.

Maya appears at Takagi’s computer lair. Takagi accuses her of having something to do with Aoi’s death, but she asks, “Ah, Asada Aoi died?”, in that playful voice of hers that makes it hard to determine whether or not her ignorance is real. But her interest in Aoi is fleeting—she really wants to know where Otoya is. Takagi refuses to tell her, of course, and Maya tells Takagi not to treat her like a terrorist before knocking him out.

Otoya and Haruka are in a taxi on their way home. Haruka blames herself for Aoi’s death. “She waited for me to come home. Because I wasn’t at home, instead of me, the terrorists . . . it’s my fault.” Otoya reassures Haruka that it’s the terrorists who are at fault.

The taxi driver stops along an isolated road in front of a dark van. Men emerge from the van and the taxi driver politely asks, “Customers, could you please ride in the van behind us?”

Meanwhile, Third-i is in the midst of a conference concerning the terrorist situation. Kirishima suspects that the terrorists who orchestrated Bloody Monday 2 years ago and the terrorists that tried to bomb Tokyo are actually separate organizations. After all, the people who placed the bomb on the JSL flight wanted to kill J.

J is also the topic of conversation at the National Terrorism Council’s meeting. They receive a call from a person with a computerized child voice. He or she demands that they release J. If not, people will start dying.  receives call.

Mizusawa returns to Takagi’s computer room to find him on the ground unconscious. When he comes to, she asks him what happened with the terrorists. He remembers that Maya is looking for Otoya and calls him on the phone. Unfortunately Otoya and Haruka are being held at gunpoint when the phone rings. One of the assailants reaches into Otaya’s pocket and pulls out Minister Kujo’s phone. Realizing that Otoya has two phones, the man takes the Minister’s.

Takagi begins to trace Otoya using the GPS in his cell phone. Mizusawa stops him—Shouldn’t he stop doing dangerous things? Fujimaru thanks her for her concerns, but insists that he must protect Otoya and Haruka. He manages to trace Otoya’s phone and confirms that something is wrong—Otoya and Haruka are going in the opposite direction from home.

Takagi calls Kano. He wants Kano to find Otoya, but not to involve Minami or the others because he doesn’t trust them. Indeed, when Minami asks where Kano is going, he just replies that he’ll be out for a while. Meanwhile, Kirishima goes to see J in the secure medical facility. J wants to see Falcon. If they want to know about the terrorist’s aims, Kirishima should bring Takagi.

The kidnappers bring Otoya and Haruka into the parking garage of Joy Site 21. Takagi relays this information to Kano. Third-i and the Terrorism Council realize that the terrorist were serious about their threat—they’ve managed to release nerve gas into a gas line.

The three kidnappers were, it seems, doing a job for the man in the red coat who kidnapped and presumably killed Aoi. Red Coat Man (as some Japanese blogs call him) arrives at the parking garage, where he pulls out a large rifle and points it at Otoya.

Red Coat Man:“Nice to meet you, Minister’s son. I’m a terrorist.”

Otoya: “Are you the one who killed Aoi?”

Red Coat Man: “I forgot. It’s better to forget about bad things. My counselor’s advice.”

Otoya: “Stop playing around.”

The man is looking for 皇帝の牙 (koutei no kiba). [This is the SD card that Maya acquired in the first episode. Subbing groups have translated it as “code key,” but the direct translation is "emperor's fang."] He orders Otoya to give it to him, and when Otoya doesn’t move, the man shoots the taxi driver. Get it out, he demands again, and shoots another one of the kidnappers.

Otoya offers to hand over the item, as long as the terrorist leaves them alone. He goes to one of the fallen kidnappers and takes his dad’s phone. Offering it to the terrorist—“It’s this, isn’t it?”

Red Coat Man says that its not. Since it wasn’t the phone, Otoya insists that he doesn’t know what he wants. The man says that this is Otoya’s last chance and grabs Haruka, pointing the gun at her. As he begins to count down from 10, Otoya fumbles to remove the SD card from the phone, and produces it just in time. “I’ve got it, I’ve got it. It’s this, isn’t it?”

“Bingo!” the man exclaims. As he reaches for the SD card, the Bluetooth piece in his ear begins to shriek. Otoya takes that moment to grab Haruka and run. They reach a locked door, where Otoya tries in vain to get it open. Remotely, Takagi is able to enter in the door’s password and unlock it for them. On the other side, Takagi calls Otoya and will guide them out of Joy Site by using the complex’s map and video system.

Kano arrives at Joy Site; Otoya and Haruka reach the front doors. However, Takagi doesn’t have the right password to get it open, and before he can figure it out, Hornet once again takes over his computer. Red Coat Man catches up to them, so Otoya abandons the front door and runs away, only to be taken down by Ladybird. “Nice follow!” says the man to Ladybird as he points his rifle at Otoya.

Otoya offers up the SD card and Ladybird takes it. Maya magically appears and shoots at Lady Bird and Red Coat. Despite her efforts, the two escape with the SD card.

By the time Kano arrives, Otoya and Maya are gone, and Haruka is unconscious on the floor. She’s not dead, thankfully. Takagi races into Third-i where he hears from Kirishima that Haruka is safe, but that Otoya is still missing, and likely with Maya. Kano is out looking for Maya, Kirishima says, and Takagi should leave the matter up to Kano. In the mean time, Kirishima has a request—that Takagi go and meet J. Thinking that J may know something about Maya and Otoya, Takagi agrees.

In the previous episode, Haruka promised a boy (Yagi) that she would meet him again the next morning to have an important talk. Well, it’s the next day and although Yagi is waiting for her at a restaurant, Haruka is nowhere to be found. Yagi has a picture of him and Haruka together—it seems to be very special to him because he’s gone through the trouble of getting it laminated.

Three young men walk in and sit across from Yagi. Yagi quickly says that he’s already paid this month’s expenses, although he doesn’t specify for what he’s paid. One of the guys takes his wallet, and then spot the laminated picture. They began teasing him, asking if he’s having an imaginary date. Folding up the photo, one of the men state that there’s no way that Takagi would ever go out with him.

Third-i and the Terrorism Council are concerned about the nerve gas. They have determined that is something resembling the VX agent. (I wonder if the writers intentionally drew a comparison to VX given that the nerve agent has actually been used in Japan before, right around the same time as the Sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway.)   So far, 12 people have died.

A member on the terrorism council asks Minister Kujo if they should include releasing J as one possible strategy. The lone female member thinks he must be joking—if they release J, Japan will be the laughing stock of the world. A phone call comes in—the death toll has now risen to 16. Once again the suggestion of releasing J comes up, but this time so that they may use the opportunity to lure the terrorists into a trap and determine their objectives.

Takagi arrives at the medical facility. Before he goes in to speak with J, Kirishima informs him of J’s illness. It seems that from the Bloody Monday incident 2 years ago, he was exposed to some radiation. Now he is dying. Takagi should not say anything to J about the diagnosis, because if J finds out he will die, he probably won’t give them any information. But it seems, as J attempts to get one of the doctors to talk with him, that he may already know.

Back at the Terrorism Council meeting, the terrorist using the computerized child voice calls again. J is no longer needed, he says. Instead, they want three people released. After looking up the three names, a council members scoffs that they are just small time criminals. Minister Kujo quickly agrees to release them, but the caller must agree to some formalities first. They need 3 hours to get ready, so in the meantime, the terrorists should not harm anymore people. After the terrorist hangs up, the minister reveals that they really aren’t going to release anyone—they now have 3 hours with the gas attack being held back.

Next we see Haruka, still being held at Third-i. When Minami comes in to give her some water, Haruka asks if the investigation will continue even though she’s told them everything she knows. She wants her cell phone back so that she can contact a friend she made a promise with. Minami refuses—they won’t let her contact anyone on the outside.

It seems that Haruka had reason to be worried about her friend Yagi. He’s in his bedroom, reading the cryptic messages that he has written on the internet. “Why was I born?” he laments.  His classmates, it appears, have been bullying him. Someone with the screen name Ryo insists that he must not say those kind of things, that there surely must be a reason why he is alive. Another commenter says that he or she understands Yagi’s feeling very much. When it feels like the person will succumb to their desires to die, they think that dying will mean that they have lost. Despite the encouragement, Yagi types “Thank you everyone, but goodbye.”

Takagi enters J’s medical room.

J: As expected, you’re amazing. Hacking into a satellite, stopping a nuclear bomb. Thank you for saving me, Falcon.

Takagi: My intention wasn’t to save you.

J: But it’s unfortunate. Asada Aoi-chan died.

Takagi: Where is Otoya? Where did you take him?

J: I don’t know about that.

Takagi: Can I believe you?

J: Don’t be mistaken. Otoya is my brother. We have different fathers but the same mother. If he were in danger, my heart would hurt.

Takagi:Stop messing around!

J: Well then, did you try asking the spy? There is a spy close to you.

[Takagi leans closer, shocked]

J: Ah, you’re interested. Well, here’s a quiz. Who is the traitor?

Maya’s car pulls to a gas station. Otoya is in the passenger seat. Since he’s such a good child, Maya will let him wait in the car. Maya approaches a man—Kano.

Kano: Why him? [meaning Otoya]

Maya: It’s his orders.

Kano: Third-I hasn’t noticed anything yet, but it’s somewhat becoming troublesome.

Maya: That’s an old problem, isn’t it?

Kano: [hands Maya a key] It’s room 1107.

Maya: [takes key] See you later.

Kano: What about the thing we talked about before?

Maya: The emperor’s fang? It’s ok, don’t worry about it.

It seems as if the new Third-I director has had his suspicions on Kano. He receives a file filled with information on the other man.

J continues to tempt Takagi. If he knew who the spy was, he’d be able to understand a lot of things. Unfortunately, is his current state of ignorance, Takagi will be unable to close the “Pandora’s Box.” Takagi leans closer—and J grabs him, putting a set of medical tweezers up to Takagi’s neck. Kirishima, and two other agents rush into the room, weapons drawn.

J warns that he will stab Takagi if anyone moves, and orders everyone to lower their guns. At J’s direction, a security guard slides his gun over to J. He pushes Takagi to the ground and points the gun at him.

Takagi dares J to shoot him—if J thinks that he will be able to escape after that, he’s sorely mistaken. J just laughs.

Yagi-kun ties an electric cord from the ceiling light.

Upon opening the Pandora’s Box, it began overflowing with catastrophe. What will be left in the end? He wonders. It’s useless.

Yagi knocks over the chair on which he stands, and hangs himself.

J places the tip of the gun in his mouth.

Thoughts

What a cliffhanger!

I don’t really like the idea that there is another spy in Third-I’s ranks. We went through that last season, so the plot device isn’t as thrilling or shocking anymore. What makes it even worse is that as of right now, the spy appears to be Kano. We went through that as well last season.  As for a less critical reason, I just really love Kano a lot.  Since the first season, I was never able to get a handle on Maya’s character. I never understood what her motivation was. In this episode we see her asking Takagi not to treat her or group her with terrorists. But what else are we supposed to see her as? I don’t quite get it. I feel like I need to go back and re-watch the first season.

On the other hand, I was blown away by what happened to Haruka’s friend. Even he looked shady in the first episode, I don’t think no one could have seen that coming. It was really heartbreaking and powerful. I really have to hand it to this drama—I don’t know anything about Yagi-kun and only saw him in one episode, but I was actually upset by his suicide, or suicide attempt. But I have to wonder what that has to do with the rest of the show. Like I said in the previous recap, this show is very deliberate, so there’s probably a point to it all. We’ll just have to trust the writers to tell us what it is in due time.

What is going on with Minami, though? She’s up for the blame for everything. Lying to Takagi, which made him hack and kill Aoi. Not allowing Haruka to use the phone, which presumably made Yagi think that no one cared about him and then try to kill himself. She’s not having an easy time this season, is she? While one probably should blame her for any of this, no doubt the characters in the drama will.

Unfortunately for the cast and staff of Bloody Monday 2, they’ve been getting killed in the ratings. The first episode scored around 9%, but the second dropped down to 7%. While the ratings for the first season weren’t really that high, they were certainly better than this. I wonder how low they will go.

After Takakura Sho (Oguri Shun) is fired from the NYPD, he returns to Japan to find the man who killed his father. He is teamed up with Kudo Maruo (Mizushima Hiro) to protect a woman who may have a connection to the case.  However, the two men have completely different personalities and working styles, which causes friction during their investigation. Can they work together to solve the case?

Even before its October-November 2009 broadcast, Tokyo Dogs was sure to be a hit. After all, it was set to be broadcast during FujiTV’s golden, prime-time 9pm time slot and starred popular actors Oguri Shun (Hana Yori Dango, Hana Kimi) and Mizushima Hiro (Hana Kimi, Zettai Kareshi). When Tokyo Dogs finally aired, the dorama seemed to live up to its hype, with dynamic camera work, great acting, a solid soundtrack and plenty of funny moments in between the action.

However, I had to stop watching this show after about four or five episodes. The racism, xenophobia and over-reliance on stereotypes ruined Tokyo Dogs for me.

The first episode began in New York City, where two Japanese cops (played by Mizushima Hiro as Kudo Maruo and Katusji Ryo as Horikawa Keiichi ) are participating in a drug sting with the NYPD. As they’re waiting for the signal to go, they strike up a conversation about someone supposedly selling takoyaki (octopus balls) at a street stand in NYC. When Kudo asks if people from Osaka are making the takoyaki (as it is considered a specialty of Osaka), Horikawa says “No, it’s a black man!”

Although Kudo can’t believe it, they later find out that the takoyaki stand does in fact exist.  And yes, it is run by a black man, but the man’s t-shirt says in Japanese that there is no octopus inside of the octopus balls. As for the drug sting, the American drug dealers are, of course, all black. Although in real life more than half of the NYPD is composed of officers of color, almost all of the American police in the dorama are white.

Here we learn that, as usual, black people are criminals, selling drugs and counterfeit versions of a beloved Japanese food. Was I supposed to find it funny that a black person is selling a Japanese food? That he might know not only Japanese but also the Osaka regional dialect? Because I didn’t see anything to laugh about. Most of the time, when the Japanese go out of their way to include black people in their television, movies or video games, blacks come out looking unintelligent (see Bobby Ologun), being drunkards (see Barret in Final Fantasy VII), or being criminals (see the infamous basketball-wielding-NYC-thugs scene in Hana Yori Dango 2).

I quickly grew tired of the stereotyping as well.  When the NYPD bursts in on the drug deal, one of the American drug dealers shoots a car, causing it to explode. One of the Japanese cops exclaims as he looks in horror at the flaming vehicle, “Americans!” Takakura has been trained by American cops, and uses more violent and forceful police tactics compared to the Japanese police. He kicks in doors, beats up people and has a “shoot first, ask later” mentality. This correlates with the belief that Americans love guns and love violence.

Throughout the episodes that I’ve seen, Kudo often makes “American jokes” (meaning, jokes about Americans) and makes other stereotyping comments as humor moments.  The problem with this is not so much that he makes the comments, but that the contents of the statements are never challenged by anyone in the show. Instead they are used for laughs, which seemingly condones his attitude towards Americans, confirms his words as truth, and sends the signal that it’s a-okay.

If its any consolation, at least they used stereotypes of Japanese police as well. The Japanese cops are shown as being ineffective fools, unable to do their jobs properly.  This is certainly the image that some people in the West are likely to have about Japanese police. Perhaps you remember that video some years ago of Japanese police running from a man wielding a club, and how much attention that got in the West.

Tokyo Dogs was popular and pretty well received by overseas viewers, which is disappointing but not unexpected. Usually, even if a Japanese or Korean drama has a spot of racism in it, I continue watching. However, when the racism and stereotyping is so pervasive as it is in Tokyo Dogs, my attitude changes. I really wanted to like this show, but in the end, the above mentioned issues were just too much for me to stomach.

Bloody Monday holds the #1 spot for my favorite Jdrama ever, so it’s fitting that the first episode of the second season will be my first recap for my new blog.

For the unfortunate souls out there who have not seen the first season, Bloody Monday is basically about a genius high school hacker named Takagi “Falcon” Fujimaru who inadvertently gets swept up in the fictional anti-terrorism agency Third-I’s efforts to spoil plans to release a deadly virus in Tokyo. With top notch acting, cinematography, soundtrack and plenty of twists and turns, Bloody Monday was a critical success.

The second season started on Monday, and the writers of this show weren’t playing around. Things got real serious, real fast, and now Falcon must make the difficult choice of remaining neutral or aiding Third-i and risking the lives of the ones that he loves.

This was particularly hard to write a recap for because (1) in true Bloody Monday fashion, this episode jumps around a lot so there was a lot to cover and (2) this was a two hour special.

The season begins with Maya up to her old tricks again: abusing up foreign people and taking things that don’t belong to her–an SD card. She places a phone call and tells the person on the other end about a plan to bomb Tokyo via an airplane the next night at 8pm.

The person on the other end of the phone turns out to be Kujo Otoya’s father, the Minister of Justice. We find out that Minister Kujo is in a bit of a bind. The news is reporting that a poll has shown that 42.4% of people do not support him.

Meanwhile, Third-i, the fictional anti-terror unit, is frantic. They are aware of the bomb plot but don’t know which plane the bomb is supposedly on. The new section chief of Third-i, Hagiwara Taro thinks this could be related to the original Bloody Monday incident two years ago and demands information about the case.

Next we see Otoya, Takagi’s close friend, lecturing to what looks like a college class about the bombs. There is a suspicious looking girl wearing a purple sweater and two pig-tails taking video of his lecture. She seems to be the only one with a computer out, but her face strategically becomes blocked every time we get close to seeing it.

At the same time in Moscow, Kirishima picks up a bleach-blond J at a prison.

Back in Japan, Takagi and Aoi are in a convenience store (conbini). Takagi is working, while Aoi is flipping through a magazine. After a little teasing about reading magazines in the store, Aoi remarks that Otoya is late. Apparently they were supposed to meet at the conbini. Takagi tells her that she should wait outside.

Aoi: “What are you saying? You’re going too!”

Takagi: Huh?

Aoi: You did forget. Otoya’s birthday!

Takagi: . . . I didn’t forget.

Aoi wonders if Otoya has forgotten as well, but just then Otoya arrives, saying that he’d gotten held up at his lecture. Mizusawa, a girl in familiar looking pigtails and purple sweater, comes from the employee-only section of the store and asks Fujimaru to take a look at one of the computers. Looking uneasy, he makes an excuse and declines. “Lame,” she remarks and goes back to her job.  Fujimaru asserts that he has really given up messing with computers. Anytime he uses one, he feels like crying.  He reminds his friends that they will be late, and they leave.

Elsewhere, a real estate agent shows an apartment to a woman (who gives her name as Ogihara Maya on the apartment paperwork). They go to look out at the view from the window, where the woman sets down her violin case and takes off her scarf to reveal a dragon tattoo. (In Japan, tattoos, especially like this one, are reserved for gangsters.) The real estate agent gets a look at it and wanders off to another part of the apartment, visibly nervous. The mysterious woman follows the man and kills him.

At nightfall the woman–codename “Ladybird”–unpacks her gun from the violin case and takes position from the apartment. She aims at a restaurant where we see Aoi and Otoya are sitting. In comes Otoya’s father, much to the surprise of the birthday boy, who asks Aoi why his father is there. Aoi spilled the beans about the birthday dinner.

Minister Kujo promises that he won’t stay long because he has business elsewhere. The Minister looks over at a chef preparing a meal just as a bullet flies into the restaurant, shattering a glass partition behind his head. Ladybird has missed, but she takes aim again and fires a second time. This time, the bullet connects. Otoya’s father is dragged away by security, but his phone slips out of his jacket and falls to the floor. It rings.

The next morning, Otoya and Aoi hear that the Minister will survive the assassination attempt. The Minister’s phone rings again and Otoya answers. On the other end is Maya, who has just returned to Japan.

Otoya: Who is this?

Maya: This voice . . . Otoya, isn’t it? Long time no see. Don’t tell me you forgot about your teacher?

Otoya: Orihaya Maya.

Maya: Thank you for remembering me.

Otoya: Why do you have this number?

Maya: Say, where’s the Minister?

Otoya:  Wasn’t it you? The one who shot him?

Maya: Oh, did he die?

Otoya: No.

Maya: That’s good.

Maya tells Otoya about the bomb attack planned that night at 8pm and suggests that they meet. Despite Aoi’s pleading, he goes out to meet Maya alone—he wants to know why his father was in contact with a terrorist–and tells her not to tell Fujimaru about it.

Fujimaru returns home after working at the conbini. His sister Haruka talks about meeting up with a boy to study later on, but Fujimaru tries to warn her against going out with boys—she can study alone. Haruka ribs at Fujimaru about the fact that he did not take studying seriously and how he is not in college. Fujimaru looks a little stung, but just says that he has responsibilities to take care of. Anyway, no boys. He’s probably a player anyway! (We are also blessed with a gratuitous shirtless scene as he prepares to shower. Thanks writers!) After his shower, he heads upstairs to sleep, but has difficulty doing so. As he rolls over in bed we get a nice shot of Takagi’s desk–note the lack of a computer.

Back at Third-i, they only have 6 hours left until the bombing. The director wants to involve Falcon in remotely hacking the bomb, but Kano informs him that Takagi no longer hacks. The new guy doesn’t care. He wants them to bring Falcon to Third-i ASAP.

Takagi wakes with Aoi in his room. On his hand she has written “Wake up idiot!” and the writing won’t come off. He looks at his cell phone—he’s going to be late for work. This time we get a pants-less AND shirt-less shot as Takagi gets dressed for work. Aoi politely looks away. Kind of.

Despite Otoya’s request, Aoi tells Takagi that Minister Kujo was shot, and that he received a call from Maya and went to meet her. She also tells him about the bomb. She can’t get in contact with Otoya, and she thinks he’s in danger.

Takagi says he doesn’t want to be involved anymore. Aoi isn’t satisfied with his answer. She pleads with him. Isn’t he worried? He says he has work, gives her his house key, tells her to lock up and get the mail.

At the conbini where Takagi works, a woman walks in. She looks like Maya, but the tattoo says that she’s not. Takagi’s pig-tailed coworker, Mizusawa, is in the back stocking drinks in the cooler. At the counter, the Maya-look alike asks for Takagi, and the man asks who she is.

“Ogihara Maya,” the woman responds before shooting him and everyone in the store. Mizusawa ducks in the cooler, and manages to escape out the back door. Takagi arrives at the conbini to find police surrounding it. He receives a call from his co-worker. She tells him to run—the woman who shot all of those people was looking for him.

Takagi meets with Mizusawa at an internet café. He begins hacking, quite well for a person who claims to have given it up 2 years ago. By remotely accessing the conbini’s security video, he sees and hears what went on in the store. Initially he is shocked to see who he thinks is Maya. Takagi zooms in on the woman and see’s the tattoo. “It’s a different person,” he realizes.

Someone by the name of Hornet takes over Takagi’s computer, and the pair hear a gunshot. Ladybird storms into the internet cafe and is informed over the phone that Takagi and Mizusawa are in booth 33.  They’re gone by the time she gets there.

Takagi takes Mizusawa to a small room filled with computers. It seems as if he really hasn’t given up on his old pastime after all. A makeshift alarm system tells them that someone is approaching the room, but it’s only Kano and Minami.

On his way to Third-i, Takagi calls Aoi, who is still at his house. She lies, however, and tells him that she’s gone home. Takagi asks her to go back to his place, take his sister and to run run away. Takagi looks at his hand—“Wake up idiot!” and says to Aoi. “Thank you, for waking me up.” Thanks for literally waking him up, or waking him up to the fact that, as he says, “Bloody Monday isn’t over yet.”

Back to Otoya and Maya. Maya leads Otoya up to a rooftop. He wants to know what her objective is this time. Why has she been in contact with his father? Is it true that a bomb will go off that night?

She’s not having any of his questions. With the force of a guns he tells him to put his hands up and turn around. After a little Maya-esque groping, she puts the SD card into his dad’s phone. She turns him around—and is shot in the back by an unknown assailant. Several more shots are fired, and Otoya runs.

Aoi is still at Takagi’s house.  She calls Haruka’s phone and leaves a message, telling her to come home. Haruka, who has met up with the boy despite Takagi’s orders, ignores the message. The door rings at Takagi’s place—Aoi thinks its Haruka and throws open the door without looking to see who it is. No surprise—it’s not Haruka, and Aoi is overpowered by a suspicious looking stranger.

At Third-i, the new director is recruiting Takagi, who knows an awful lot about the director before he can even introduce himself, much to Kano-san’s amusement. From the Hornet’s attack in the internet café, Fujimaru determines that the airline carrying the bomb is Japan Sky Line Flight # 421. This just happens to be the flight that J and Kirishima are taking from Moscow to Japan.

Indeed, a handcuffed J, Kirishima and another agent are on the plane. As well as a suspicious long-haired man with a gun and an unattended suitcase with an antennae sticking out of it. This is not looking good. While the pilots of JSL 421 are being notified of the emergency, J takes the time to mess with Kirishima.

“Have you been looking for me these entire two years?

[About Kirishima's fiance that succumbed to the virus J attempted to spread.] What was her name? Saori-something?

Don’t forget. You shot and killed my sister, didn’t you? Even though she was still a child. Well, they say revenge is revenge.”

Kirishima is called to the cockpit where he is told that there is a high probability that the bomb is on his plane.

Of course, Kirishima suspects J, who insists that he doesn’t know anything about it. The other agent remembers the suspicious green suitcase and goes to investigate it. The suspicious long-haired guy watches nervously. With the help of a laptop they confirm that it is indeed a bomb. Even at gunpoint, J won’t take responsibility for the bomb. J insists that it couldn’t have been him or any of his people—after all, if it explodes, he dies too.

It’s Falcon vs. Hornet

The other agent relays the information to Third-i. The bomb’s system was set to lock while they were flying over Russia and unlock once they neared Japan, but there’s not enough time to fly back to Russia in order to lock the system and prevent the bomb from going off.  Furthermore, even though the system is unlocked, they can’t get into it without a password. Takagi volunteers to try and get the password, but once again Hornet interrupts him and takes over the computer screens to broadcast Aoi being held hostage and pumped full of KLC (potassium chloride).

Takagi can’t close out the video. “What is this? Why is this happening? I don’t understand what this means.”

Minami understands. “If you keep hacking, you’ll kill the girl.” Indeed, the more he hacks, the more potassium chloride is injected into Aoi. From the background in the video, Third-i tries to hone in on Aoi’s location and narrows down the buildings where she could be. Minami and Kano goes out to look for her and Haruka.

The director informs Takagi that there is still time to stop the bomb, so keep hacking and get the password.

Takagi: “There’s no way I can do that.”

Hagiwara: “After 30 minutes a bomb will explode in Japan. There’s no need to worry about the girl. Please believe in Third-i. We will definitely save her, so please continue hacking. ”

The director loses his cool when Takagi doesn’t answer. It’s millions of lives on the line to save one girl, so do it!

There’s 20 minutes left until the bomb detonates and the passengers are getting restless, ready to land. While the agent is busy trying to get the password, J lifts the handcuff keys and liberates himself for a little fun. Hey, this could be his last moments, so why not? He tells the other passengers that a terrorist has hijacked the plane and plans to bomb Tokyo. When Kirishima comes in to take control, J points to Kirishima and yells “He’s the terrorist!”

Naturally, the passengers either try to run or attack Kirishima. The suspicious long haired man gets in some good hits, but a gun gets everyone’s attention and a badge assures the people that he is not, in fact, a terrorist. Unfortunately, he must now inform the passengers about the true danger they are in. The pilot confirms Kirishima’s story.

Back at Third-i, Takagi is still refusing to hack. Suddenly, the video is removed from the computer screens and they get a call from Minami. He no longer has to worry about Aoi, she’s safe. Right away, Takagi begins hacking. He gets the password and relays it to the second agent. But a flight attendant/incognito terrorist momentarily takes the second agent hostage and breaks his laptop. It is revealed that the suspicious long-haired man is actually an air marshal, but they are now unable to hack into the bomb from the plane because of the broken computer.

Everyone’s ready to give up—but Takagi declares, “There’s still another way to stop the bomb. GPS still remains.”

Takagi hacks furiously, but the countdown timer on the bomb is quickly approaching zero. At the moment when the timer should have hit zero, the plane vanishes from the radar and everyone fears the worst. But Kirishima comes in over the radio—the plane is still in one piece. The director is amazed that Takagi has stopped the bomb, and even J has to clap.

But there’s not time for Takagi to celebrate—now he faces the true consequences of his actions. On the director’s bequest, Minami lied—they hadn’t found Aoi. Because Takagi kept hacking, she died from the KLC injection. Otoya and Haruka, who were both safely located by Third-i, arrive. “Who did this?” demands Otoya as he looks at Aoi’s body in horror.

The only answer Takagi can give was, “It was me,” before breaking down into tears.

“Wake up, idiot!”

Wrapping things up:

1. K is apparently alive.

2. Maya is alive too.

3. The terrorists announce their objectives (my translation could be and might be incorrect but it seems it’s the stereotypical cleans/renew/return the country motive).

4. Hornet implies that if Takagi continues hacking, someone else he loves could meet the same fate as Aoi.

5. I left out the scenes with the Minister and other politicians near the end because I didn’t think they were too important and this was getting long. However, it’s might be significant that early in the show we saw that Otoya’s dad is loosing support in the polls, so the fact that he has been in  contact with Maya and held out until the end in hopes that Takagi would stop the bomb seems very suspect.

Thoughts

If you think about it, it had to be Aoi that would die out of Takagi’s remaining circle of friends and family. Otoya’s dad has some sort of connection to Maya, so we need Otoya around. To kill off Haruka when Takagi’s mother died a long time ago and his father died 2 years ago would be just too pathetic and would leave Takagi little left to fight for. (Although arguably, the fact that his friends keep dying may already make him pathetic.) So unfortunately, it had to be her.

There were a lot of good scenes here, but my favorite had to be the ones with J and Kirishima, especially the one about Saori and K. Really, characterization is such a strong point of this drama–I like tons of characters here. Not only the ones we’re supposed to root for, like Takagi, Otoya, and Kano, but even the “bad guys” like J and Maya.

Rule #1 of Bloody Monday: Don’t turn off your brain.

This show is very smart and deliberate, which is why I like it.  Just like in the first seasons, the writers have sprinkled around a lot of ambiguous, random scenes in this episode where you can’t really tell who is doing the actions you’re seeing.  It appears that some of the scenes showing a person using a computer are of Takagi. In some random scenes you see a mole-type character a the computer screen. This is the same mole that is on one of Takagi’s thumb drives (in the internet cafe scene). There’s also the fur-lined hood on the jacket that Takagi wears–it appears in another random computer scene. By carefully watching these scenes you can tell that Takagi is lying when he that he had given up computers before the writers have to spell it out for you.

It took me a second viewing to figure out the girl that was filming Otoya’s class was actually Takagi’s co-worker, Mizusawa. Although we never saw her face in the classroom scene, the clothes and the hair were the same.

The “Wake up idiot!” written on Takagi’s hand was an excellent foreshadowing of Aoi’s death. Notice how the writing fades as the show goes on. This is why Bloody Monday is genius—the little details are planned perfectly and come together in a “d’oh!” moment.

Rule #2: Suspect everyone.

Everyone looks suspicious. The new Director. Mizusawa. Minister Kujo. Heck, even that little boy Haruka was trying to hook up with didn’t look right to me.

Rule #3 of Bloody Monday: People die often. Except when they don’t.

We’ve had about four or so casualties in one episode alone, and two “rebirths.” I might keep a tally about deaths and fake deaths going forward.

The first episode was quite a ride, so I have high expectations going into the second episode. Thankfully the recaps should be much shorter!